Made from fava beans, these do not require cooking. They have a strong curry flavour and are very similar to real fridge raiders. The vegetarians liked them as they weren't “challenging”. This guide covers ready-made meat alternatives and includes products designed to taste, smell and look like meat (appetisingly called ‘meat analogues’ in the trade). It also covers products like tofu, falafel and vegetable fingers which can be used as meat replacements, but in general are not marketed as being analogous to meat. Developed as a collaboration between London’s Saatchi & Saatchi and Japanese agency Dentsu, the campaign will aim to drive brand awareness in the young adult category (18 to 34 years-old.)

A July 2022 report from business strategy advisors, the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), found that “for each dollar, investment in improving and scaling up the production of meat and dairy alternatives resulted in three times more greenhouse gas reductionscompared with investment in green cement technology, seven times more than green buildings and 11 times more than zero-emission cars.” Only Unilever (Vegetarian Butcher) received our best rating in our Supply Chain Management category. Just 7% of soya is used directly for human food products such as the ones rated here, and the amount has increased minimally over time compared to soya processed for animal feed, which has risen sharply over the last 30 years with the global demand for meat – from 88 million tonnes in 1990 to 227 million tonnes in 2013. A Swedish company produces these nicely flavoured, sweet chilli bites with a soft texture. It scored well on similarity to meat. The cells to start the process can be taken from biopsies of live animals. The cells are fed nutrients such as amino acids, glucose, vitamins and other growth factors.Kantar Take Home FMCG – fastest growing brands based on value sales 48 w/e 29-Nov-20 vs. w/e 28-Nov-21 Best Buys Our Best Buys don't use palm oil or South American soya, and are from vegan organic companies: Clearspot, Clearspring, Taifun, and Tofoo. Tofoo is available in supermarkets. Except for Taifun, they all cost around the same as big brands like Quorn and Birds Eye. States: "Our soy is not sourced from land that causes deforestation" but does not name source countries

Made from wheat protein, these look like McNuggets but only the outside texture is like the real deal. Although they have almost no flavour, the vegetarians liked them.

Added to this, because it is a capital-intensive industry requiring expensive technical equipment like bioreactors, lab-grown meat is likely to be dominated by big companies, like JBS. This means a further concentration of power in the hands of a few companies.

While the carbon impact of meat alternatives is generally lower than meat, we expect all companies to be taking reasonable steps to reduce the climate impact of their activities. On the whole, the companies in this guide didn’t do well in this respect. This company is an interesting example of a vegan company owned by an investment firm. It looks more like an investment vehicle for those wanting to cash in on the new vegan market than a company fit for the challenge of fixing a broken food system. Squeaky Bean is owned by Compleat, which also owns Bowyers, Wall’s and Pork Farms which all sell non-organic pork products. The products in this guide vary considerably, from the very simple, such as plain tofu, to the meat analogues which tend to have long lists of ingredients and are more likely to be highly processed. In the context of an otherwise healthy diet, the occasional convenient, highly processed fake meat burger isn’t a problem.Avoiding meat and dairy products is the single biggest way to reduce your environmental impact on the planet. Soya has long been a staple of Asian and vegetarian/ vegan diets and it is the main ingredient in many of the products rated here. But soya bean cultivation remains linked to deforestation in South America. We look at how sustainable soya-based alternatives are in more detail below. Tempeh